International Ymca's Pro-palestinian Report Brings Protest

February 22, 2001|By Vincent J. Schodolski, Tribune Staff Writer.

LOS ANGELES — A new report by a division of the international YMCA movement that portrayed Palestinians as the victims of Israeli occupation and aggression has stirred controversy within the YMCA organization and angered American Jewish leaders.

The report was the result of a visit to Palestinian-controlled areas of Israel in November by a delegation from the World Alliance of YMCAs, a non-governmental organization that is part of the international YMCA's Geneva headquarters.

Among the conclusions in the report posted on the World Alliance's Web site was that Israeli forces were committing systematic and widespread human-rights violations against Palestinians; that innocent people, "mainly women, the elderly and children," had been subjected to the use of force; and that Palestinians believe there was widespread indifference to their plight, particularly in Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.

The YMCA, at its core a Christian organization, has been active in the Holy Land for six decades, conducting a broad range of social and educational programs in Jewish and Muslim areas, and has traditionally remained neutral on the region's complex politics.

Officials at the Los Angeles headquarters of the Simon Wiesenthal Center launched a protest against the report as one-sided and biased against Israel.

They also concluded that the attitude expressed in the report signaled a shift within the YMCA toward a pro-Palestinian political attitude.

"When I read it, it was so over-the-top, so one-sided," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, the Jewish human-rights organization named after the famed Holocaust survivor who spent much of his life tracking down former Nazis. "I was quite surprised that this was an area that the YMCA would get involved with."

Cooper noted that the five-person delegation did not investigate Palestinian violence directed at Israelis and visited only parts of the Holy Land under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

"There are also kids cowering at the other end," Cooper said.

He concluded that the World Alliance leadership had decided to move toward an active political position on the Middle East conflict because of the breakdown of the Oslo peace process and the recent changes of administration in the U.S. and Israel.

Cooper has received support for his views on the report from other YMCA officials, including the Chicago headquarters of the YMCA of the USA.

"The language, tone and characterizations included in these materials do nothing to aid the true cause of peace and stability nor do they position the YMCA for effective service across the boundaries of the dispute," said Kenneth Gladish, national executive director of the YMCA of the USA in a letter to World Alliance General Secretary Nicholas Nightingale.

"The genius of our movement is the ability to rise above the political agendas," Gladish wrote.

The World Alliance delegation is in Palestinian-controlled East Jerusalem at the moment, and a member of the group said they may travel to the western part of the city to meet with YMCA officials and perhaps Israeli peace groups, maybe even Israeli settlers.

But a delegation member made it clear that the World Alliance group had a very clear view of the situation in the region.

"Our purpose will not be to find out from the Israelis what their issues are," said Ranjan Solomon, a World Alliance staff member, in a telephone interview. "We see this [conflict] not as two sides to a story, but as an occupation."

While accepting Israel's right to exist, Solomon said the World Alliance sees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a specific prism.

"For us we have defined the question of Palestine as a question of occupation," Solomon said. "We clearly took a position and that is true."

Cooper said Solomon's comments were further proof that the World Alliance had adopted a new, aggressive political stance.

The delegation also made recommendations about steps the World Alliance should take to monitor developments in the Middle East and steps YMCAs worldwide should take to make people aware of recent events in the region.

The delegation suggested that the World Alliance establish an observer office in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority to monitor "human-rights violations against the Palestinians: economic, social and humanitarian . . . ."

In addition, the World Alliance proposed that the YMCA "should use all available means to advocate on the immediate critical situation in Palestine and also on the long-term struggle for justice and peace for the Palestinian people," perhaps by sending Palestinian speakers to YMCAs, churches and other social groups; send out alerts on developments in the region; and organizing a "Solidarity and Prayer Day," possibly coinciding with the UN's International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on Nov. 29.

Cooper, of the Wiesenthal Center, wrote to Martin Volger, president of the World Alliance of YMCAs, to complain about the report.

Volger defended the report and the delegation in his response, saying the Alliance was not anti-Israel and that its position was not unlike that of many other organizations.

"The international community broadly takes the view that the Palestinians are the real victims of the ongoing tensions and lack basic and legitimate right to a homeland and to live in dignity as all other people and nations," he wrote.

Arnold Collins, spokesman for the YMCA of the USA in Chicago, said the group found the World Alliance report "inappropriate" and "destructive."

Collins said that the YMCA of the USA provided the World Alliance with $500,000 last year, or about 4 percent of the international department's budget. The YMCA of the USA owns and administers the International YMCA in West Jerusalem and provided $5 million to that institution last year, Collins said.